Debt of Honor - Tom Clancy [382]
Durling almost smiled at that, remembering all the fantasies, and even a TV commercial once, about how different it might be if the president and prime ministers and other senior officials who ordered men off to the field of battle instead met and slugged it out personally.
"You're still going to have to kill a lot of kids," the President said. Admiral Jackson drew back from his angry demeanor before answering.
"I know that, sir, but with luck, a lot less."
"When do you have to know?"
"The pieces are largely in place now. We can initiate the operation in less than five hours. After that, we're daylight limited. Twenty-four-hour intervals after that."
"Thank you, Admiral Jackson. Could you all excuse me for a few minutes?" The men filed out until Durling had another thought. "Jack? Could you stay a minute?" Ryan turned and sat back down.
"It had to be done, sir. One way or another, if we're going to take those nukes out—"
"I know." The President looked down at his desk. All the briefing papers and maps and charts were spread out. All the order-of-battle documents. At least he'd been spared the casualty estimates, probably at Ryan's direction. After a second they heard the door close.
Ryan spoke first. "Sir, there's one other thing. Former Prime Minister Koga has been arrested—excuse me, we only know that he's kinda disappeared."
"What does that mean? Why didn't you bring that up before?"
"The arrest happened less than twenty-four hours after I told Scott Adler that Koga had been contacted. I didn't even tell him whom he'd been in contact with. Now, that could be a coincidence. Goto and his master just might not want him making political noise while they carry out their operation. It could also mean that there's a leak somewhere."
"Who on our side knows?"
"Ed and Mary Pat at CIA. Me. You. Scott Adler and whomever Scott told."
"But we don't know for sure that there's a leak."
"No, sir, we don't. But it is extremely likely."
"Set it aside for now. What if we don't do anything?"
"Sir, we have to. If we don't, then sometime in the future you can expect a war between Russia on one hand and Japan and China on the other, with us doing God knows what. CIA is still trying to do its estimate, but I don't see how the war can fail to go nuclear. ZORRO may not be the prettiest thing we've ever tried to do, but it's the best chance we have. The diplomatic issues are not important," Ryan went on. "We're playing for much higher stakes now. But if we can kill off the guys who initiated this mess, then we can cause Goto's government to fall. And then we can get things back under some sort of control."
The odd part, Durling realized, was the trade-off concerning which side was pitching which sort of moderation. Hanson and SecDef took the classical diplomatic line—they wanted to take the time to be sure there was no other option to resolve the crisis through peaceful means, but if diplomacy failed, then the door was opened for a much wider and bloodier conflict. Ryan and Jackson wanted to apply violence at once in the hope of avoiding a wider war later. The hell of it was, either side could he right or wrong, and the only way to know for sure was to read the history books twenty years from now.
"If the plan doesn't work…"
"Then we've killed some of our people for nothing," Jack said honestly. "You will pay a fairly high price yourself, sir."
What about the fleet commander—I mean the guy commanding the carrier group. What about him?"
"If he chokes, the whole thing comes apart."
"Replace him," the President said. "The mission is approved." There was one other item to be discussed. Ryan walked the President